The farmer wants the gmo crop. They see the yields they get and go hell yeah. They can't use the seeds next year because these are often hybrids taking advantage of hybrid vigor. These crops get more out of existing fertilizer applications. This is the whole point of them: inputs cost less, yields go up, more profit.
Look at this figure of corn yields per acre (1). Yellow is the "old age" where yields were stagnant. Red is when fertilizer began to be used. Now the huge slope change, has been in exploiting genetic hybrids. GMO allows protection of desirable hybrid traits that might be lost in breeding, introduction of traits to to other strains. Traits of interest are primarily around lessening usage of fertilizer, lessening usage of insecticides, as these are all input costs the farmer would rather not pay especially if they can get the same yield without paying. Thank you GMOs for keeping this linear change in yield even over the last 15 years! Could you believe we improved our corn yields substantially over these 15 years? Remarkable the work biologists do in the quiet of their field.
But of course, lay people just think it is a big conspiracy. They don't understand any of this. They think GMOs are copyright but that belies a lack of education of the last century of agriculture development, since that doesn't make sense as farmers have been using hybrids and ordering new seed some 70 years now in certain crops. It is the nations who have to resort to reusing seed and these inferior strains that are suffering poor yields and food insecurity. Over here, we feed far more with far less land under the plow every year. Their yields are still stagnant at historical levels. And climate change is coming for them, while we are understanding the very genetic basis of our yield improvement. They will be using seeds we engineer for them to be high yield in their changing environment to survive widespread famine in the coming decades. GMO is the greatest human invention, more important than even computers.
1. https://extension.entm.purdue.edu/newsletters/pestandcrop/wp...
